Risk Preferences, Compensation Risk, and Employee Outcomes
Annual LERA Research Volume: Employee Ownership and Shared Capitalism: New Directions and Debates for the 21st Century, Cornell University ILR Press, 2011
31 Pages Posted: 14 Mar 2012
Date Written: September 24, 2010
Abstract
We use the NBER Shared Capitalism Database comprised of more than 40,000 employee surveys from 14 firms to explore whether a close match between workers’ risk preferences and the riskiness of their compensation packages relates to improved employee outcomes including lower absenteeism, lower shirking, lower probability of voluntary turnover, greater worker motivation, and higher levels of job satisfaction and loyalty. To do this, we use survey questions reflecting workers’ risk aversion parameters, coupled with a series of measures of the riskiness of workers’ compensation packages including the proportion of pay comprised of various forms of shared capitalism such as profit and gain sharing, ownership of company stock, and bonus arrangements. The primary finding of our paper is that a match between the workers’ risk preferences and the extent of risk in their compensation increases workers’ motivation, job satisfaction, company attachment, and loyalty, but risk-averse workers are generally less responsive to a preference-compensation match than risk-loving workers.
Keywords: Employee Ownership, Risk Aversion, Profit Sharing, Stock, Bonus
JEL Classification: J54, J33, M52
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation